Hawaii Volcanoes National Park

Pictures by QT Luong

Hawaii Volcanoes National Park, on the big island of Hawaii, is one of the most dynamic places on earth, where volcanic activity forms new land every day, while evolution has created life forms found nowhere else on the planet.

One of its volcanoes, Mauna Loa, which was responsible for the emmergence of the island from the ocean floor, is 13700 feet above sea level (the world highest peak on an island) and 42000 below the sea, making its total height the largest of any mountain on earth, while its very gently slopping 10000 cubic miles makes it the most massive mountain.

The other notable volcanoe, Kilauea is one of the world's most active, erupting continuously for thirty years. The Hawaii volcanoes do not have an explosive eruption unlike continental volcanoes, but instead spew a fluid and slow moving flow of molten lava (which make it possible for visitors to get close enough to a live flow to feel their skin burning), and then hardens into fluid fabric shapes which evntually add up layer upon layer to build a bleak black landscape which makes up most of the park.

The Hawaiian islands are further away from a major land mass than any other in the world (at least 2400 miles in any direction). Over the span of about 70 million years, plants and animals managed to make the voyage to the once barren islands and to colonise it, at the rate of one every 70000 years. In the absence of predators, they had plenty of time to evolve into more specialized life forms. Over 80 percent of Hawaii's native flora and fauna is endemic, including more than 100 land birds, 1000 plants, 1000 mollusks, and 10000 species.

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